Beitraege zur Erforschung der antiken Moabitis (Ard El-Kerak) – serie

This book is a first presentation of pottery samples from el-Bālū‛ in the northern Ard el-Kerak, the ancient Moabitis which today is Central Jordan. The forms presented here are dating from the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age down to the Persian periods of occupation of the site of el-Bālū‛. The book does not discuss the pottery in the wider context of Jordanian or Palestinian ceramics; however, the intention was to present pottery from the hitherto only sparsely published Iron Age pottery of the region. With this documentation scholars of the Archaeology of Jordan are invited to work on the ceramics excavated in the Areas A, B, C, D, E, and G of el-Bālū‛.

In the spring of the year 2000, north of the Iron Age site of el-Bālūc, the present-day inhabitants of the area (known as Umm Dimis) discovered a burial cave containing numerous receptacles and objects from the various settlement epochs of the northern Arḍ el-Kerak. The examination of the burial cave, its further excavation, and the preparation of drawings and photographs of the artifacts then took place in the summers of 2001 and 2002. The burial cave consists of two chambers connected with each other by a narrow corridor about one meter wide, and with the surface by a small opening in the first and a widened opening in the second chamber. Because this discovery is the first relatively widely varied collection of nearly whole vessels in the northern Arḍ el-Kerak – ranging from the early Bronze Age to the late Iron Age III – it is very important that these pieces of pottery and associated artifacts are accessible to the archaeological research in Transjordan. However, in the light of future research and insight the comments on the individual vessels will deserve amendment.